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Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

How Do You Handle Marital Fights? Part 2

Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greear

J.D. Greear

Christianity, Religion & Spirituality

4.9624 Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, as we continue our marriage and family series, Pastor J.D. gives us the second half of his 10 stages of grace-saturated, gospel-centered fighting. He's joined by his wife, Veronica, for another episode.

Show Notes:

If you missed the first half of this episode, take a look now.
10 Stages in Grace-Saturated, Gospel-Centered Fighting:
6. Believe in God’s purpose for your marriage

We knew that God had obviously appointed us to be together even though we felt like we married the wrong person sometimes, and that God had a plan for our difficulties and was making something beautiful out of them! 
There is one factor that, if we could introduce it into your marriage, would do more to strengthen it than anything else, and that is hope. 
And that hope comes from knowing that God has a plan for your marriage, even the difficult parts of it. He knew whom you were marrying, he knew the consternation they would cause you, and he’s got a plan to make something beautiful out of you and maybe your marriage in it. 
Same thing is true for single people. God has a purpose for all things, even the difficult relationship.

 

7. Speak grace-saturated words

* If you are speaking words that build up, not tear down:
For every one statement about what is wrong, there will be five describing what is right and that paint a vision of the beautiful person God is making them. 

* You’ll never demean with “you” statements. Calling names: Names make you feel good, quickest way to alienate an enemy… Say, “You did this,” not “You are this”
You’ll avoid saying ‘never’ and ‘always.’ You’re always this way or that way. Don’t escalate it beyond the problem. “Never” and “always” basically tell the person that “you are this” and “you stink” rather than “you have done this” and “I expect more from you.” 
You’ll avoid being sarcastic (Sarcasm usually functions like a knife. And it’s the quickest way to turn somebody off: Remember: smarty had a party and no one came).
Avoid being condescending (to condescend means to talk down to).


And women, avoid confronting your husband publicly: 

There’s nothing that shuts a man down like having his wife tear him down to someone else.



 

8. Don’t give up until there is no longer a chance of reconciliation

We know divorce is a larger topic, but to just touch on it quickly: we know that God hates it. So do some of you.

In most cases, he sees it as adultery.


There are exceptions: 

Adultery; 1 Corinthians 7 Paul says if you have an unbelieving spouse who leaves you, if you wonder if you fit into that category, see us. 
Abuse: We’ve covered this more at-length on Ask Me Anything, but of course you should never stay in an abusive situation and you should reach out and get some help immediately.


But the point is that you should give grace a chance. 
Before you give up on your marriage, give the power of grace a chance. 

 

9. Truly forgive

Remember: Forgiveness is a choice not to remember or bring up the offense any longer!
* Ken Sande: True forgiveness says:  

* I will not think about this incident.
* I will not bring it up again or use it against you.
* I will not talk to others about it.
* I will not allow it to stand between us or hinder our relationship
* You have to think of past flaws like they are ammunition already spent.


* Never get “historical” in an argument.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, everyone.

0:02.0

Hey, everyone, welcome back to Ask Me Anything, and we are today going to be diving into part two

0:25.3

of a question we asked last week about how to handle marital fights. So if you remember,

0:31.3

we're in a marriage and family series, and then within that series we did a part one,

0:36.1

and we're doing part two this week. We're here with J.D. and his wife, Veronica.

0:40.0

And they're going to kind of keep just sharing some wisdom about how do they handle fights in their marriage?

0:45.1

Fights are obviously a part of every marriage.

0:47.0

And so how do they handle it in a way that is healthy?

0:51.1

Okay.

0:51.5

So number six is believe in God's purpose for your marriage. And, you know, this has a lot of echoes of number five.

0:58.5

Which was seek their sanctification, not your vindication. Right last time. Yep. I think that specifically for me, I mean, sometimes you're, you may think that you're angry at your husband or your wife when you're actually angry at God

1:12.4

because this is, you know, be careful. One of my mentors in high school told me, be careful what you

1:18.3

pray for because God will be faithful. And so if you pray for patience, get ready. You know,

1:23.5

if you pray for endurance, just all these things. And so that's very real. So if you've asked the Lord to grow you in sanctification, holiness, those things, he is going to use the person

1:32.8

you're married to do it. You know, I think that you might need to sometimes recognize like,

1:37.6

okay, this is something he is trying to grow me in, whatever it is, you know, some fruits of the

1:41.9

spirit, you know, other things. He's trying to make

1:44.2

you learn. Maybe you have more of an anger problem than you realize. He's trying to make you

1:47.9

recognize envy or bitterness or who knows what. And so that's a, I think that's a really important

1:54.6

thing to recognize that you need to wholeheartedly come to a place where you embrace God's

2:00.2

purpose for you and your marriage.

2:02.7

Yeah, we've had it. There's another assumption that we brought out on Ask Me Anything before

...

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